Road trip finishes

I finished the binding on my queen sized Christmas quilt during my drive across Kansas today.

Yesterday I was able to crochet around the edge of a baby blanket. 

Sewing as I travel really makes the time go by faster.  It has been a wonderful trip thus far. 

Taking hand work on the road...

I will be doing a lot of riding in the car over the next week and have packed a lot of hand work.  It is pretty typical of me to save hand work just for this purpose.  I like to keep busy and I can use my machine at home but not away from home.

I hope to hand applique' this vine, leaves, and flowers.  It is just glue basted.  There is also a missing flower in the end that needs to be basted.

I also brought two more borders like this one that can be prepped for applique' and glue basted down.  I can't do that in the car, but I can do it in the evenings.

I hope to finish the embroidery on this angel block.

I hope to crochet around the edge of this flannel baby blanket for my niece's baby shower in two weeks.

I hope to stitch down the folded curves on this flower/star block and applique' down the leaves, vine, and bonnet on this little Sue block.

I hope to get this quilt bound.

I also want to put 3D ears on the pig, embroider a tail, and add button eyes and nose holes.  The dog block also needs a bone, nose, and eyes.

I am linking up with:

To Do Tuesday
Finished or Not Friday
Friday Foto Fun
Midweek Makers
Crazy Mom Quilts
Can I get a Whoop Whoop?

Another one quilted! It is my second Christmas finish this year.

There is not much detailed quilting on this one.  You can't really see the quilting on the back or the front and it is heavily pieced, so I decided for a minimalist quilt job.  I do like it though.

The binding is attached by machine and will be completed this weekend as I do some traveling in the car.  I love the hand stitching part of the binding.

Here is my late 15 min to stitch report.  I am back dating it to Sunday like I usually do.

Past week:  5 out of 7
This month:  17 out of 20
This year:  113 out of 140
81%


I am linking up with:

BOM's Away
Needle and Thread Thursday
15 minutes to stitch
Let's Bee Social
Weight Loss Wednesday

To Do Tuesday

15 Minutes to Stitch Report:

Past week:  6 out of 7
This month: 11 out of 13
This year:  108 out of 133
81% again


Last week's To Do Tuesday:
1.  Applique' the bears on my log cabin quilt
2. Piece one house for my Sliced Quilt
3. Baste Justin's Bear Cabin Quilt
4. Put my family mystery quilt on the frames for basting
5.  Begin quilting Christmas Log Cabin
6. Plan and kit one of my family round robin quilts
7.  Make three bags for Mother's Day gifts

8.  Help my daughter kit her round robin quilt

I am so pleased with 7 out of 8.



This week's To Do Tuesday Goals:

• Finish quilting the Christmas Quilt
• Piece one house for my sliced quilt challenge
• Put my students' barn quilt on the frames for basting

I have begun machine quilting my Christmas Log cabin.  The borders were hard for me to decide on.  The rest I am basically doing stitch in the ditch work because it is has such detailed piecing.

I also got this one basted.

I really hope to have them both quilted and bound by the end of May.

I am linking up with Bom's Away, Let's Bee Social, Esther's WOW, and Freemotion by the River

Bags for Mother's Day

I have been making bags for Mother's Day.

These two are for my daughter.

This one is for Mom.  I bought her a darling little Amish doll.  She loves Amish style things.

Check out the detailed crochet and ribbon work on the hemline of the doll dress.

Here they are all together.  The little green and blue one is for my Mother-in-Law.  The purple/grey one is for my other daughter.  I posted about it earlier.

They are sitting on my family mystery quilt that is on the frames and ready to baste.

I am linking up with:

Crazy Mom Quilts
Finished or Not Friday
Can I get a Whoop Whoop?

15 min to stitch and To Do Tuesday

I came home from work yesterday to a crew on my roof and an angry husband.  The roofers did a pretty crappy job.  Hubby used to roof houses for a living while we were in college many years ago.  He is a perfectionist, but chose to hire it out because he is super busy and wanted to alleviate some stress.  Well, he ran a few morning errands and returned to find that the roofing crew had put the ice and sheeting right over the top of old nails that were left on the roof, some even turned point up.  We are talking lots and lots of nails, not just a few.  Isn't it a no brainer that you clean off all of the nails and debree BEFORE you roof?  He used to run a flat shovel over the roof to check for anything poking up before starting the roof.  It was a sloppy job!  On top of that he asked the foreman to have the workers put any metal pieces in a separate pile from the big dumpster we brought in so he can take it to the scrap metal yard.  He came home to a dumpster full of metal and whatever else mixed together.  What's more is he pulled it all out of the dumpster, went inside, and came back out to it having been put back into the dumpster.  The workers do not speak English so he could not communicate with them. On top of all that I came home to a huge hole in my hall ceiling.  When they removed the roof air conditioner, they ripped a huge hole in my sheet rock ceiling.  I can now see clear up into the rafters, insulation and all.  It was a mess.  My husband said they damaged the roof supports and tried to hide it when he came up on the roof.  He tore up what they were doing and had to fix the problem himself to insure that the roof was properly supporting the house.  

We will see what today brings.  

As for last week's progress, I worked very hard but didn't get it all done.  No worries because at least I made progress and a lot of it.  
Here is my 15 min to stitch report:

Past week:  6 out of 7
This month: 5 out of 6
This year:  102 out of 126
80% again

Last week's To Do Tuesday update:
1. Finish the April section of Pieceful Country
2. Finish my son's Bear Paw Log Cabin Quilt 
3.  Begin quilting Christmas Log Cabin
4. Put my family mystery quilt on the frames for basting
5. Piece one house block for my Sliced Quilt
6. Applique' the bears on my log cabin quilt.

Two out of 6 is still 2 done.

This week's To Do Tuesday:
1.  Applique' the bears on my log cabin quilt
2. Piece one house for my Sliced Quilt
3. Baste Justin's Bear Cabin Quilt
4. Put my family mystery quilt on the frames for basting
5.  Begin quilting Christmas Log Cabin
6. Plan and kit one of my family round robin quilts
7.  Make three bags for Mother's Day gifts
8.  Help my daughter kit her round robin quilt

I have the goats cut out from the "Udder-ly Crazy" pattern book by Janet Nesbitt.  I think he is prettty cute.  Her patterns are so much fun to make.  You can see the pigs and dogs in my previous post.  I didn't get a picture of the cows before I packed them up to send to the next person in our group.  She will be getting these goats too.

I have sewn a TON but don't have photos to show yet.

I am linking up with:

Midweek Makers - I was featured there last week!  Yay!
Esther's WOW
Needle and Thread Thursday
Weight Loss Wednesday


Have a great week!

Pigs and Dogs

My family is beginning a new round robin. There are eight of us this time plus we are making a surprise quilt for my mom out of her birthday fabric she got from us two years ago.  She has decided that she can't piece any more, so we will make one for her.  

Here is how it works.  Everyone sent me enough fabric of their choosing to make a queen sized quilt.  I came up with a rotation schedule and sent the fabric back to someone else in the group.  It is fun to not know who is planning your quilt, so that is why they all sent to me instead of to each other.  The person who receives the fabric decides what quilt to make out of it, makes 7 kits with the quilt completely cut out and some strip units already made, sews up the first kit, and passes it onto the next person.  We pass once a month and will finish the end of January skipping December.  Each month as you receive a new quilt, you sew up the kit and add it to the other assembled blocks.  The rule is that the owner of the quilt gets a completed top at the end minus borders.  It is so much fun and really brings us closer together.  The participants are my sisters, sisters in law, a daughter, a niece, and a friend who is really a part of the family.

I had so much fun seeing everyone's gorgeous fabric and drooling over it as I received each package and mailed them out.  I will post more on the fabric I received, but here are four of the blocks I have started on.  I am doing a "farm animal" quilt complete with cows, dogs, pigs, goats, barns, birds, sheep, and chicken.  I am using my Buggy Barn/Crazy patterns that I recently purchased.  I had to make up the dog and pig blocks for my section because I shrunk them down and wasn't exactly certain what the finished size would be to fit the rest of the quilt.  The dogs still needs applique' nose, bone, and button eyes.  One dog will be sitting in a doghouse with a chicken on top.  I forgot to insert the ears on the pigs so they don't look so good right now.  I will be fixing that, adding eyes and a tail.  I promise the pig is going to be so much cuter.  

I still need to cut out all of the fabric, make some small stars, and create the instructions, but I have a great start.

I am linking up with:

BOM's Away
Monday Making
Moving it Forward Monday
Main Crush Monday

Pieceful Country's April section is done.

I finally got the main blocks done for my "Pieceful Country" quilt which are my rendition of the "Land of Liberty" quilt the others in the group are making at Humble Quilts.  I absolutely love this section!  I was at a loss of what to put in place of the Lady Liberty block that the others were making.  Robin, a group member, suggested a "little lady in her garden".  That was exactly the inspiration I needed.  I pulled out one of my patterns for a spring row quilt I designed many years ago and made the sunbonnet Sue block.  It still needs a yo-yo in the center of the flower.  

I have not yet assembled the blocks together.  I like to see how everything evolves first since my quilt is a little bit different.  I will be able to fill them in where they go at the end.

I am linking up with Humble Quilts and Show Off Saturday.

Bear Paw Quilt top is done!

I       F I N A L L Y got this baby done!  I had hoped to have two done by now, but at least I have one.  The other quilt like this one just needs the bears in the border blanket stitched and the trees cut and made.

Tonight I am working on preparing the backing.  I think my son will love this one.

I am linking up with:

Crazy Mom Quilts
Finished or Not Friday
TGIFF
Midweek Makers
Weight Loss Wednesday
Can I get a Whoop Whoop?

May One Monthly Goal as well as other goals...

My One Monthly goal for May is to quilt and bind my Family Mystery Quilt.  I am giving this one to my son.

This quilt as well as my Christmas Log Cabin Quilt are on my list for #12 in the Patchwork Times UFO Challenge.  The #12 was drawn for May.  They are also part of my 18 in 2018 list.

Others goals include:

1.  Receive and send out fabric for another round of our family round robin.  I will post about this soon.

2.  Kit two of the family round robin quilts.

3.  Sew one or two houses for my Sliced Quilt Challenge

4.  Finish the April section for Pieceful Country - This is part of it.

5.  Cut the flowers for three Buggy Barn quilts I want to make.  The same flower is in all three quilts.

6.  Complete my son's Bear Paw Top and get it basted for quilting

7.  Complete my Bear Paw Top which is identical to my sons

8.  Make bags for my mom and daughter for Mother's Day.  This is what they will look like only in different colors.

9.  Baste my student's Barn Quilt

I am linking up with:

Freemotion by the River
Esther's WOW
Let's Bee Social

A pineapple and a flower...

I have been working on my Pieceful Country Quilt tonight.  I love that I only spend one evening a month on this, so it is simple and a good change from other projects. Oh, the embroidery work takes longer but I always save it for road trips and times I am away from my machine.

I used a Buggy Barn pineapple pattern I had in the house.  I did have to shrink it because it was too big.  I turned the star points into flower petals with folded insert squares.  I still need to stitch them down.

I decided to make a scrappy flying geese border all the way around, so I made up a few of them.  I still have to decide on and make one more block for this section.  The original pattern has a lady liberty which doesn't fit my theme.  

I forgot to show my finished mini bag.  Here it is.

I am overdue for my PHD update, To Do Tuesday list, and my 15 minutes to stitch update so here they are:

To Do Tuesday:

This week I hope to 
1.  Finish the April section of Pieceful Country
2.  Finish my son's Bear Paw Log Cabin quilt top (it only needs 12 bears appliqued on with a machine blanket stitch and borders attached)
3.  Begin quilting my Christmas Log Cabin Quilt
4.  Put my family mystery quilt on the frames for basting
5.  Piece one house block for my Sliced Quilt
6.  Applique' the bears on my Bear Paw Log Cabin Quilt.

Last week I worked hard but fell behind on my weekly goals.  I hope to do better this week.

15 Minutes to Stitch Update:


Past week:  6 out of 7 days
April:  24 out of 30 days
This year:  96 out of 119
80%

PHD Update:

I am linking up with:

BOMs Away
UFO Busting
Moving it Forward Monday